Recent content by UrDroid

For some time now in the stock Email app, web links in received emails just don't work. (Droid Turbo, Android 6.0.1) At first you can get them to work by tapping the "Show pictures and links" option on the individual email, but once you've done that for a sender the option no longer displays...

Apparently apps like Google Play Services feel entitled to display notifications like "Update Phone Number!" that you can't dismiss and must act on to clear. I just discovered how to clear these: Long press the notification and tap "(i)" to go into settings, turn on "Block all notifications...

It's unnecessarily mysterious. Nothing appears on the phone screen when the connection is made, not even a status bar icon, which is why I wouldn't have known to swipe down to see a notification about the connection type; I found that searching online, described as standard for Marshmallow. It...

Which phone, carrier? Doesn't matter, I'm talking about the standard Android SMS app. It's called "Messaging", with the green oval icon. Which Android version? Marshmallow, since that's the section I posted this in, but it doesn't matter, this app has had the same problem for years. The...

Is there a way to enlarge the message composing area in the stock SMS app? It's really tiny, just a couple of lines, and I'd like to make it bigger.

I just discovered that file transfer to a PC works differently now in Marshmallow. Previously I could just connect the USB cable and see the phone's storage as a drive. Now the phone seems to default to "charging only" whenever connected to USB, and if you want to do anything else you have to...

I want to share the solution to a problem that's been driving me nuts. Ever since some (?) Android upgrade, the Maps app has been showing a bar at the bottom saying "Explore [something]", in addition to the search bar on top that I'm often not using. You can remove all this clutter! It...

Why is a mere "security update" so huge? Downloading...

Just FYI, here's one drawback we've found to HD voice: while it works well with normal speech, it can cut out and be impossible to understand when speaking quietly. (If you ever need to do this, try turning HD off.)

It seems to require a long press on Home now, not a swipe up from it.

This problem finally seems to be solved with the Marshmallow upgrade (or the version of Playstore and Services bundled with it).

Correction: you can still restrict background data for Play Services, you just can't get there from the Data listing anymore. Find it in the app listing instead. It might be worth a try if you can't identify a particular app that's (over)using these services.

Yes, oddly enough, I have. I don't use any apps on a regular basis that should be causing Play Services to use as much data as it did, which is why I restricted it. And why restricting it made sense, and worked. The only app that ever required me to re-enable it was Playstore, so I imagine...

Oops, I spoke too soon. Although Play Services is now mysteriously absent from the data usage list, you can still find it in the basic App listing (once you include System apps), and from there you can tap on "Data usage" (it wouldn't have been obvious to me that tapping here does anything, but...

This is interesting enough to deserve a separate post: Under Lollipop I found that Google Play Services was using a LOT of data on a regular basis, so I had restricted its background data and that solved the problem. (I had to reenable it temporarily to actually use the Play Store app but that...